Vatican workers install Sistine Chapel stove where ballots are burned during conclave to elect pope

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Vatican workers installed the simple stove in the Sistine Chapel where ballots will be burned during the conclave to elect a new pope and began taking measures to block any electronic interference with their deliberations, as jockeying continued Saturday outside over who among the cardinals was in the running.

The Holy See released a video Saturday of the preparations for the May 7 conclave, which included installing the stove and a false floor in the frescoed Sistine Chapel to make it even. The footage also showed workers lining up simple wooden tables where the cardinals will sit and cast their votes starting Wednesday, and a ramp leading to the main seating area for any cardinal in a wheelchair.

The engineer overseeing the works, Silvio Screpanti, said workers were also deactivating all the electronic sensors that have been installed in the Sistine Chapel in recent years to help protect its precious frescoes. Such work is part of the technological blackout that accompanies a conclave to prevent bugging of the secret deliberations and ensure the cardinals have no contact with the outside world.

In the coming days, all the windows of the Apostolic Palace facing the Sistine Chapel will be darkened. On the eve of the first vote itself, some 80 seals will be erected around the perimeter of the space where the cardinals will live — between their residence and the Sistine Chapel — to keep outsiders away, he said in comments posted on the site of the Vatican city state.

On Friday, fire crews were seen on the chapel roof attaching the chimney from which smoke signals will indicate whether a pope has been elected.

The preparations are all leading up to the solemn pageantry of the start of the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, who died April 21 at age 88.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a net denial of reports that one of the leading candidates, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, had suffered health problems earlier in the week that required medical attention. The reports, which spoke of a blood pressure issue, were carried by some Italian media and picked up by some conservative U.S. sites, including Catholicvote.org, the U.S. site headed by Brian Burch, the Trump administration’s choice to be ambassador to the Holy See.

Speculation about a papal candidate’s health is a mainstay of conclave politics and maneuvering, as various factions try to torpedo or boost certain cardinals. Francis experienced the dynamic firsthand: When the votes were going his way in the 2013 conclave, one breathless cardinal asked him if it was true that he had only one lung, as rumors had it. (Francis later recounted that he told the cardinal he had had the upper lobe of one lung removed as a young man.) He was elected a short time later.

Bruni also confirmed the names of two cardinal electors who will not be participating for health reasons, bringing the number down to 133: Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the retired archbishop of Valencia, Spain, and the retired archbishop of Nairobi, Kenya, Cardinal John Njue. Two more cardinals have yet to arrive in Rome

What happens in the conclave?

The Vatican said Saturday that all cardinals will be asked to arrive at the main Vatican residence, Domus Santa Marta hotel, or an adjacent residence between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning to begin their sequester. They must be in place before Mass on Wednesday morning in St. Peter’s Basilica celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. In the afternoon after lunch, they will process into the Sistine Chapel, hear a meditation and take their oaths before casting their first ballots.

If no candidate reaches the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, on the first ballot, the papers will be burned and black smoke will indicate to the world that no pope was elected.

The cardinals will go back to their Vatican residence for the night and return to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday morning to conduct two votes in the morning, two in the afternoon, until a winner is found.

The preparations are underway as the cardinals meet privately in more informal sessions to discuss the needs of the Catholic Church going forward and the type of pope who can lead it.

Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, the archbishop of Algiers, Algeria, said cardinals were feeling the pressure to find a new pope but weren’t ready.

“Of course we don’t feel ready,” Vesco said as he arrived for Saturday’s closed-door meetings. “Because we have to discover the one that God has already chosen. We need a lot more time of prayer together. But I’m sure that at the right moment we will be ready and we will give to the church the pope that God himself wanted.”

Singapore Cardinal William Goh, who welcomed Francis on the final stop of his four-nation Asian trip last September, said the right pope would eventually materialize.

“We recognize the achievement (of Pope Francis) but no pope is perfect, no one is able to do everything, so we’ll find the best person to succeed St. Peter,” he said.

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